


Haze

by Caz (CheeryKralie)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Hypnosis, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Web Rights, suggestive content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:08:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29644869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheeryKralie/pseuds/Caz
Summary: 1900 words of hypnotising the Archivist. If that sounds like something you'd enjoy, get in!
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 10
Kudos: 83





	Haze

**Author's Note:**

> unofficially for leitnerpiper69 because this is just too webhypno not to be
> 
> thanks to the jonah server gang for helping me brainstorm titles
> 
> technically this doesn't fall under any of the archive warnings, buuuuut there's hypnosis of an unwilling participant in it, so there are specific warnings at the end if you would like them.

"I don't want to complain, Elias, but the state of the Archives—"

This is a lie. Jon does want to complain. And he's determined that Elias will listen to him; annoyed as he is, he wants above all to impress, and how is he meant to do that with the incomprehensible mess he seems to have inherited?

"Not to speak ill of my predecessor, but it really seems like Gertrude didn't put the slightest bit of effort into her job. You must have seen her filing system? It's — in a word, it was atrocious. A whirlwind might as well have been in charge of the Archives."

Elias sighs, and says mildly: "I have every faith in you and your team's ability to straighten things out."

Well that's all very well and good, but — "My  _ team _ is the other thing that I wanted to talk to you about, actually." Jon pauses. He knows that he's on dangerous professional ground. But he's also never been one to jump into the shallow end when the deep is available, and so he plunges forward. "Martin's work is still sloppy and unprofessional, and I know you asked him to take the position, but with all due respect, Elias, I still don't think I know  _ why _ ."

Elias already looks like he wants to sigh again. Jon's handling this far too abrasively, he's sure, but the train of his thought stops for no-one, least of all for himself.

Instead of sighing, Elias shuffles his papers, though the impression of polite impatience remains the same and Jon is hyper-aware of it. But rather than the expected admonishment, Elias just says: "While you tell me about it, Jon, would you mind using that lighter of yours?"

Jon's almost surprised to find it in his pocket, but he doesn't remember the surprise for long; certainly not long enough to dwell on what an odd request that is. "Oh... of course," he mutters, pulling it out and weighing it in his hand. The patterned metal is warm, and the click of the opening cover satisfyingly loud.

"Leaving aside the disastrous incident with the dog on his first day," says Jon, as his thumb remembers the ridges of the flint wheel, "his conduct has really not improved one bit. His field work, for example, is dreadful."

The roughness of the wheel against his skin, the click, the warm smell of butane: they are all familiar in a comforting way. They come back to him like riding a bicycle.

"He seems more inclined to have a nice cup of tea with an interview subject than ask them any useful questions."

He holds the lighter up, away from his flammable shirt and jumper, and the air above it ripples. Elias's face seems to move strangely through the haze. It strikes Jon how silly he must look, holding a lighter up with no intention of lighting anything; he considers closing it and putting it away, then forgets the idea.

"And, ah..."

His attention is divided now, far more so than he’d like. Under normal circumstances Jon would pace while talking, waving his hands; but holding an open flame obliges him to stand carefully still, and his mind casts about for something else to help him focus. It settles on the shiver in the air, and the warm flame moving beneath it. Blue, rising into gold-brown, rising into yellow, all swaying incrementally.

Which way will they flicker next? The small flame moves on air currents far too subtle for Jon to feel, and on the random tremor of his hand, rendering prediction useless. He finds himself trying to predict it all the same. He's not sure why he thinks there's a pattern, though he's certain he can find it if he tries; but the flame moves too quickly and too subtly, through too many forms to keep track of, and when he blinks his stinging eyes he's forced to start all over again.

With an effort, Jon rallies himself. He was here for a reason, and it wasn't to stare like a gormless idiot. Where was he?  _ Right. _ Martin. 

"And don't get me started on, on his..."

Can he hear the tiny hiss of the escaping gas, or does he just remember how it should sound? The flame is close enough to warm his face, so surely it's close enough to hear. Does that make sense? The urge pulls at him to stop talking altogether and just listen, to find out for sure, and he struggles to stay on-task. Whether real or imagined, the possibility of that quiet noise interrupts his thoughts whichever way they try to turn.

It's embarrassment, rather than common sense, that nearly snaps him out of it. What must he look like, standing here gawping at his hand? What kind of impression must that give to his superior? So he frowns, and manages in a wandering voice: "S-sorry, Elias, I don't, um..."

"It's all right, Jon," comes Elias's gentle voice from somewhere beyond the flame. "You're doing quite well."

Relief makes him breathe deeply, the scent of butane and fire filling his mouth and nose. His off-hand twitches with the urge to hold a cigarette.

Neither of them speaks for a few moments more. Then, just as Jon starts considering trying to summon the will to break the silence, Elias says pleasantly: "Good. Drop now."

Things go soft, and dim, and far away.

It's like sleep, if he was to remember sleep from before he started suffering his strange, lucid nightmares. No, he corrects himself: it's more like the moments between sleeping and waking, and the paralysis that sometimes comes over him then. It’s a kinder, gentler version of the screaming inside his head when he lies in his bed and tries to move and can't; when something constricts his chest, too tight, too tight. When he's logically perfectly aware that nothing is there, and all he can do is wait and hope that that nothing goes away. 

It doesn't go away. It puts a hand into his hair, a soothing touch. The thought of paralysis, which had almost succeeded in making him scared, is swaddled, stifled, and gently drawn out of his head. He no longer corrects himself. He no longer has thoughts to correct.

Someone’s talking, but it’s indistinct, the words less important than the hum of the voice speaking them.

It feels good, he realises. Even though he didn't expect this to happen, it almost seems like he knew it would feel good.

It’s Elias talking, he realises slowly, and he tries, he tries so very hard to pay attention.

"...You  _ do _ like the sound of your own voice, don't you, Jon?"

The amusement in Elias’s tone comes through, even though Jon only just understands the words.

"Rest it for a while," says Elias, and he leans close, close enough for even Jon to see from his close, comfortable world. "You’re going to need it later."

Jon doesn't reply out loud. He wouldn't even if he could; he needs to rest his voice for a while, a fact so true and obvious that Elias hardly needed to say it, though of course Jon’s glad he did. But he feels the need to respond with something, and Elias is smiling, so Jon smiles too.

Elias laughs.

Fuzzily, Jon is pleased, though a moment later he forgets why. It's just good here, without reason. He was so worried about something, before. So many somethings. But here he simply  _ is _ , and he's unaware of any complications.

Perhaps unawareness should bother him, but that never gets the chance to cross his mind.

"Get up," Elias says at last, from a distance. Jon is confused for a moment. Then he realises he's on his knees, and the lighter is no longer in his hand. The realisation holds no greater significance to him, though it does present him with a problem, as his limbs aren’t entirely obeying him just now. When he tries to stand, they feel wrong: the wrong length and the wrong joints, his legs numb as if he's been kneeling on them for a while. 

He’s not sure how long it takes to coordinate himself, but Elias's patience at some point wears out. He reaches down, as if to help Jon up. Then, changing the direction of his hand, he touches Jon's lips; following that, he pushes Jon's loose jaw open, and forces his thumb inside.

Jon would splutter if he was able. As it is, his breathing only quickens for a moment as he's dragged upright, and he only just gets his feet under him in time to keep from falling again. Elias's thumb jerks his neck back, roughly bruises the roof of his mouth, and  _ something _ is wrong,  _ something _ about this is wrong. There's that pressure in his chest again, a suggestion of a breath of the terror of lying immobilised in bed as a monster stalks.

The thought is like dust. He can't keep it in his hands. Before he can even think of holding onto it, it's gathered and bundled and cleaned away.

Elias pulls him forward, thumb still hooked behind his hard palate and the line of his teeth. Jon goes to him without resistance.

Then the thumb is removed, but it pulls strangely at the inside of Jon's mouth. It seems to stick a little, as if Jon has gone so soft and pliant that the thumb has simply sunk into the roof of his mouth and stuck there. Is that possible? The idea sets his throat tickling.

Elias looks at his own thumb with an expression that Jon has no hope of reading. There's something gleaming on it that isn't just spit.

Then he pulls, carefully, and Jon feels the threads of something too fine to see snap one by one. He feels the little impacts in his throat, on his tongue and behind his teeth. Elias rubs his hands together as if to remove something that very much wants to stay.

Something that came out of Jon himself.

Jon coughs, once, the sole luxury of acknowledgement that he's allowed. But now that he's aware of the threads, he can no longer ignore them. They're in his throat. They’re on his eyelids. They're heavy on his tongue. His stillness suddenly feels less like relaxation than it does constriction. They're even holding his limbs, contracting on his chest, too tight,  _ too tight _ .

Someone far away is screaming inside his head.

But Elias must notice something in his eyes, because he puts one hand back in Jon's hair, and the other — now, thank god, clean — on his cheek, rubbing small, comforting circles on his skin. "Shhh," he says, his voice gentler than Jon has ever heard it. "Forget it's there. Forget it. Drop for me. So far down that nothing but my voice can reach you."

Jon goes, shuddering. He finds himself fuzzy and slack, his face against the shoulder of Elias's suit jacket, Elias's hands still on him. Something that briefly seemed important has been silenced, numbed and drawn away, bound up with thin and invisible threads.

All he does is breathe.

Elias is still talking softly, steadily. "It feels good, when I bring you down like this," he says. It does, it does. "It always feels so good." He’s right, he’s right, it always feels so, so good.

"You really are a gift," murmurs Elias. "What a shame I can never keep you like this." As he brings their faces together in a kiss, Jon has no response at all.

**Author's Note:**

> specific warnings: jon gets nonconsensually dropped into a hypnotic state, and manipulated and kissed in that state. nothing more sexual than that is shown, but it's implied that time has been lost and that this state has been triggered more than once.


End file.
